www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Ukrainian Stations of the Cross

Dear Joe,

O.K.

Hey, my mother's Italian too!

What can I say?

Alex

Joe,

There is nothing wrong with wanting to reclaim a heritage. There is nothing wrong in wanting to be as authentically Ukranian/Ruthenian/whateverian as possible. What is wrong is to damge the faith of the people in the process.

No matter what we want or like, the reality is that several generations of Byzantine Rite Catholics grew up thinking they had to be as much like the Latins as possible in order to be "real Catholics."

Recognizing that, we must also know that the very Latin things they do really does feed their faith. As Jesus told his disciples with regard to the man who worked miracles in Jesus' name but wasn't a part of the "in group" -- leave him alone, no one can work miracles in my name and at the same time speak ill of me. Whatever feeds their faith is good.

What we do is to slowly educate people about the great riches of the Eastern traditions. I preached a homily a couple of months ago. I pulled out my prayer rope and asked how many knew what it was. Many of the people said it was a rosary. I explained the tradition and let it go at that. Many of my Melkite parishoners pray the rosary -- that's what they grew up with.

I guess the bottom line is to recognize the need to minister to people where they are. Jesus did this with the Samaritan woman at the well. He started from where she was and led her to an encounter with the Messiah. We must do that with our people.

Edward, deacon and sinner

"Whatever feeds their faith is good."


Is it really faith that is being fed or a personal, psychological need? We often confuse many things with faith. Everything becomes faith. Change a tone, you are changing one's faith. Do a liturgical service that was substituted for years by a service from another traditions, you are "damaging" their faith. Doing "whatever" feeds their faith, just so it is not one of those damaging things. I am not convinced that it is a matter of faith for most. It ignores the fact that those who should have known our faith refused to put it into practice. The people only know, at times, what their pastors taught them - or fed them. Usually, the faith wasn't being handed down to them. I knew some priests who did anything for his people, usually disgruntled post-Vatican II Latin Catholics, who made big contributions to the parish.

I understand quite well that pastoral prudence must be present when gradually introducing old/new things. Unfortunately, many never even try to begin - or want to. I have discussed our traditions with parishioners for years and after they learned a little about what they were all about they were comfortable with it. Sadly, too many "returns" to our traditions were done poorly and with no tact. A common method was the ramming method. This is not good. It is not the tradition that is damaging but the method used to reinstitute it.


Joe

Joe,

You ask: If they are praying the rosary they are feeding their faith. If they are praying the stations of the cross they are feeding their faith. In fact, if they are praying they are feeding their faith.

If we look at Scripture we find a bunch of books about people and the relationship they had with their God. That relationship is formed in a particular way, the people respond in a way that they know. Just because people have adopted (or adapted) a tradition from another Ritual Church doesn't mean it's bad. It means they had a need and this tradition met that need.

Is it a psychological need? Of course! I serve as a deacon in part because I have a need to serve. When God calls he plants a need to respond to that call within us. Because God wants us to pray he plants a need to pray within us. How people pray is, in large part, conditioned by how they were taught to pray.

In my Melkite parish we have people who feel they are really praying only if they pray in Arabic! We have people who come to the iconostasis and genuflect before the icon of the Theotokas! Do I correct them for this? Of course not! What is there to correct? They are doing what they were taught to do and what they have done all their lives!

If I might be so blunt: learn to accept what doesn't need to be changed. Learn to recognize what should be changed, and prepare to spend a lifetime changing it. Also, recognize that somethings that should be changed will never be changed. That's a part of life. My pastor has been in our parish for more than 12 years -- and there are things he is still trying to change.

Edward, deacon and sinner

[ 02-28-2002: Message edited by: J Thur ]

Wisdom, let us attend!

<grin>

In IC XC
Samer

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Dear friends,

I never expected that this topic would generate so much interest!

I can see Joe Thur's point. I think that the pastor has handled the situation about as well as could be expected, perhaps even better. The process of de-latinization has not been easy. In many respects this Ukie Cath parish is just as Orthodox as the local Ukie Orth parishes.

Alex, you have mentioned a number of these fascinating Western Ukrainian practices before. It seems that the Ukie Cath hierarchy's notion of "Orthodoxy" is one that keeps Latin influence to a minimum. It is a crucial one. Just what does one mean by "Orthodox" or "Orthodox practices?" Can a parish be "Orthodox" and still have the Way of the Cross, the Rosary, etc.? Is a Ukrainian Catholic parish which strictly follows Orthodox practices actually more Orthodox than a "latinised" Ukrainian Orthodox parish?

Your point about the beatified Ukrainian and Carpatho-Rusyn martyrs is a good one. All of the bearded ones (except Bsp. Josafat) stictly followed traditional Orthodox litugical practices and encouraged others to do the same. These same martyrs also practiced certain Western devotions (e.g. Eucharistic Adoration, Rosary, Way of the Cross, etc.) The same is true of some other saintly Ukies like Mtr. Andrew Sheptitsky, Patr. Joseph Slipyi and Mtr Volodymyr Sterniuk.

Presviataya Bogoroditza Fatimskaya, spasi nas.
RusOrthCath Martyrs and Confessors, pray for us.

[ 02-28-2002: Message edited by: PaulOrthCathConfessor ]

Rich,

Get out of town! You're a Cambria County boy too!
St John the Baptist in Barnesboro (now Northern Cambria) was my introduction to the Byzantine Church. I grew up in Hastings about 5 miles away. I had relatives at St. John's and would attend Liturgy when I stayed with them. And that began road to the Byzantine Church.

Another interesting and ironic note. The whole reason there is a Ukrainian Church and a Ruthenian Church in a town so small is because as the Ruthenian Church of St. John's got Latinized the Eastern leaning parishioners followed a Ukrainian sympathetic priest and founded the new Immaculate Conception parish and went under the Ukrainian Catholic bishop. At least that is the story that I was told. Immaculate Conception is a beautiful and traditional Carpathian wooden church, beautiful iconostasis, etc. But today they are served by a biritual Syro-Malabar priest. The Liturgy is never sung and their claim to fame is now having the fastest (40 minute) Saturday night Liturgy in the area, Roman or Byzantine. On the other hand, St. John the Baptist Ruthenian, once one of the most Latinized Byzantine parishes you could find, is quietly restoring themselves (and SS. Peter and Paul in Patton as well) under the leadership of Fr. Don Valasek.

In Christ,
Lance, deacon candidate

Well, Lance, just a generation removed. I have fond memories of visiting my baba and aunts & uncles there in my early years. Even my aunt who was the last relative of mine who belonged to St. John's could describe how Latinized St. John's had become.

But as far as the origin of the Spangler parish (Immaculate Conception) -- it's not quite as you were told. Read the early history of St. John's that I wrote for their centennial in 1997. St. John's was actually an Orthodox church when that happened...

And when it returned to Catholicity, it was totally traditional at least until the 1930s. Msgr. John Yurcisin (one of the patriarchs of the American C-R Orth. Diocese) was an altar boy there and described to me how it was back then. The old church (destroyed by fire) was magnificent. Unfortunately, no photos of it seem to exist.

Rich,

Thanks for the correction. Do you have htat article on your computer? If so could you email it to me? My own ancestry is tied to St. John's. At one point my ancestors on my maternal grandmothers side were Greek Catholics. They were from Bardejov, Slovakia and considered themselves Slovak. At some point they left St. John's Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church for St. John's Slovak Roman Catholic Church next door. As an ethnic researcher, do you think any of the Greek Catholics from Slovakia were really Slovak or all Slovakized Rusyns?

In Christ,
Lance, deacon candidate

Lance, the article's on its way...

Lance,

Barnesboro!

That was my family's parish 100 years ago when they came over to work in the coal mines. They lived just down the street a block or two in what used to be a mining company house. They were Rusyn Greek Catholics from Kojsov - just west of Kocice near Gelnica. My baba came from Sumiac, a more Slovak Greek Catholic village near Levoca.

They later went and bougt a farm from a Civil War veteran who engineered the road from the Marstellar mine to the route leading to Nicktown. in 1917 up in Moss Creek (Marstellar). It is still operating today. Excellent beef!

They later went over to the Ukie parish when the courts padlocked St. John's church doors due to legal over ownership. I miss visiting and talking to the late Fr. Myron Holowinski at St. Mary's. He married my parents in the old St. Mary's church before they built that beautiful chruch in the 70s.

My current neighborhood has many from Cambria County. We know the East side of Cleveland as Little Cambria. Many came from back there in the 50s looking for work. I miss visiting St. John's and St. Mary's up on the other hill in Spangler.

Ever go to Farmer's Inn just south of Carroltown?

RichC,

I have some family that might have photos of the original St. Johns church. But trying to get old family photos is quite difficult. Such things are coveted and not shared.


Cantor Joe Thur

[ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: J Thur ]

Dear Joe,

That's very interesting about the photos. At the very least, I would be delighted to know if they do exist. Thanks! (Perhaps I was mistaken about which was your "home parish" but you mentioned that you were from the area and I knew that Thurs were from St. Mary's IC UCC.)

The photos would be for a massive book that I've been researching/writing (for over 10 years) on the history of "our people"'s churches & fraternal lodges, etc. in Pennsylvania.

My grandparents lived in Mosscreek for several years too.

[ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: RichC ]

RichC,

I will have to contact my distant relatives about the photos. After my grandmother died, the "funeral vultures" took a few.

Both parishes were "home parishes" for my father. St. John's was the first, then St. Mary's. My actual home parish was the Elko-ized highly Latin St. Stephen's in Euclid, Ohio, where a lot of Cambrian blood settled. Today, it is a very Byzantine Church with two wonderful priests.

Joe

[ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: J Thur ]

Dorohij Oleksander,

You are correct about the on-going tradition of "Stations" among the Transcarpathian Rusyn
Greek Catholic Churches of the Rusyn Eparchy of Mukachevo
and among the Rusyn Orthodox Churches under the Moscow Patriachate. I witnessed this with my on eyes this past June ('01). In the Transcarpathian Rusyn
village of Chudl'ovo, if you climb up the entire mountain, you will see 14 sations of the cross shrines with the 14th atop the summit. All of the
Transcarpathian Rusyn Orthodox Churches (even after re-painting and renovating) still "leave" the paintings of the Stations of the Cross on the walls. While their priests are very much Muscovites, they at least allow the Rusyn Plainchant to be sung in Church Slavonic, in it's original, musical form. Meanwhile, in the Slovakized environment of the Presov Greek Catholic Eparchy, the Rusyns are forced to have a
Latinized Divine Liturgy (complete with guitar accompaniment)"recited" in the Slovak vernacular (Can anyone say cultural and ethnic intimidation?).
Which is more Latinized? I'm glad my relatives are Orthodox, at least they control their churches
and continue to sing their Divine Liturgy in the Cyrill-Methodian Church Slavonic language, and don't let civil secularism dictate policy in their Eparchy!

Slava Ukrainia!(forgive me, RichC)

Ung-Certez